Lenovo IdeaTab S5000 Review

Since Lenovo created a dedicated tablet division back in 2011, the computing company has been releasing mid-range devices with much success.

Back in January, it revealed that its IdeaPad and ThinkPad ranges had contributed to an 80 per cent growth spurt – something that was much needed considering computing sales as a whole have been on a downward trend.

At IFA 2013, Lenovo showed off its latest Android tablet, the 7-inch Lenovo IdeaTab S5000. The standout feature of this tablet is definitely its weight, or lack of it. The S5000 is a mere 244g, which makes it significantly lighter than the new Nexus 7 (340g) and the iPad mini (308g).

So, it’s light then but it is it also light on features? Well, frankly, yes. There is a 1,280 x 800 resolution display , which is certainly sharp but not as sharp as its main rivals in this sector.

The pixels per inch on the S5000 are 215, while the new Nexus 7 boasts 323ppi. Both beat the iPad mini, though, which has been lumbered with just 163ppi.

The S5000 been given a 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek 8389 CPU, which does mean that multi-processing on the S5000 is half decent, and this is backed by 2GB of RAM. But none of this processing grunt has the wow factor.

We didn’t notice much lag when playing with the device, though – the model we got hands on with had Android 4.2.2 and it also had Lenovo’s own sheen on top of the operating system, and both worked well.

We could flick between web and camera smoothly and the pinch to see multiple homescreens worked well. We would prefer a stock Android device, however, as the HS5000 suffers from the same childlike look as the worst parts of Samsung’s TouchWiz overlay.

We did like the look of the actual device – although the chrome lip at the bottom of the tablet could disappear, the silver look does raise the tablet above the design of other cheaper tablets.

The S5000 has been equipped with a 3,450mAh battery, so you should get around eight hours’ web browsing out of the device, or six hours’ HD video watching. This figure is decent enough, and matches that of most of its rivals.

Also on board is some 3G functionality for the UK, 16GB of storage and a 5MP rear camera and 1.6MP front-facing camera.

Light, functional and not much more in between, the Lenovo S5000 on first impressions is a competent 7-inch tablet but not one you will be rushing out to pre-order.

But if you want to, the Lenovo IdeaTab release date is November and it will cost around 200 Euros.